LotS/The Story/Puny Human Birthdays II/Intro

Zone Intro

Adrian Zanfran, formerly a freelance editor but now, apparently, a freelance human, stared at the screen. There was a lot of text there. A veritable wall of green characters assaulted his bleary eyes, interspersed by fusillades of bullet-points and stalwart chunks of illustration. This was somewhat reassuring. Since Adrian's continued integration relied on the contents of that screen, along with the rest of the research which waited to scroll into existence from above and below, having a large amount of material could only be a good thing. However, it was hard to judge its worth when it throbbed before his exhausted gaze like a radioactive green mass.

He sighed and pressed the ends of his tentacles to his face. Their coolness was soothing. And the suckers did a good job of massaging his eyelids. After a few moments of blessed darkness he lowered them. His ocular weariness had lessened. Now he could look at the screen without feeling that it was bludgeoning his eyeballs in an attempt to break through to his brain and splatter it across the inside of his skull. But the deeper tiredness, the mental fatigue which had brought an end to his typing, still hung around his head in a thick fog.

Adrian gazed around the room. The other workstations, which had formerly held glowering Rylattu, were now empty. It was late, and the Mighty Rylattu Publishing House of Ultimate Might's other employees weren't -- as far as he knew, at least -- facing destruction if their work wasn't up to scratch. Hence they'd gone home, or to whatever pastimes such people engaged in to relax after a day at the office. Possibly the evisceration of humans for sport, he mused.

He knew he should do more work. There was still a lot he could dig up about the subject of human birthdays, to increase his chances of appeasing Barp Sek Bul and make the supreme editing overlord less inclined to obliterate him. But he was tired. Perhaps a little break would give him his second wind...

The freelance human looked at the clock in the corner of his screen, and carried out a quick mental calculation. His favorite thugby team, the Warlords of Mars, had been scheduled to play Niflung Storm that day. And unless Adrian was mistaken, the match must already have taken place. He sighed. His multimedia wristband was still wrapped around his right arm. And since that limb was somewhere else, having been blown clean off his body during the unfortunate misunderstanding with the receptionist, his wristband was beyond his reach. In retrospect, he should have taken it off the detached arm and put it on his new tentacle. However, Adrian couldn't quite blame himself for overlooking the device. He'd had other things to think about at the time.

So like generations of workers before him, and probably untold generations yet to come, Adrian Zanfran decided to appropriate his terminal for a little personal use. He opened a fresh browser window, then directed its cyberspatial path to the Novocastrian News Network's site. He was greeted by a grinning picture of Edmund Rochester, the leader of the opposition on Novocastria, beneath a headline proclaiming that party's victory in a by-election. But Adrian didn't concern himself with such things. As long as no one was trying to conscript him or blow up a planet he happened to be on, he rather felt that politics could take care of itself. Or themselves... Whatever. He wasn't editing now, damn it.

He reached out and tapped the button for sports news. This brought up a fresh page, dominated by the image of a cricket ball destroying a wicket. The bails were frozen in mid-flight, the stumps just beginning to splay in different directions like a collection of haphazard teeth. Accompanying that picture was text concerning the results of an interstellar test match. This too held no interest for Adrian Zanfran. Cricket bored him even more than politics. But the button for thugby news was now at hand, so the tip of his tentacle darted towards it.

Something angry and red burst through the screen. Adrian flinched from the scarlet apparition with such sudden force that both he and his chair went over backwards. They crashed on the floor, sending a jarring pain through his spine which evoked a groan. The chair bore its own suffering, if any, with silent fortitude.

"Adnan Zebra!" yelled the holographic visage of Barp Sek Bul.

"Yes, overlord?" he gasped, as he scrambled to his feet.

"I have uncovered your wretched plot! You came to the Mighty Rylattu Publishing House of Ultimate Might so you could steal our superior bandwidth like a worthless parasite! Security have been alerted and are on their way to blast you with their mighty weapons!"

The distant din of stomping boots came through the doorway, heralding the promised blasting.

"Wait! I was just taking a break! A break!"

"You aren't being paid to take breaks, puny human!"

The stomping drew nearer.

"I was tired! I'm sorry! I'll work harder! I'll work harder!"

Barp glared at him for a long moment. Adrian glanced at the doorway. The boots sounded very, very close...

"Very well! I shall allow you to live! Thank me for my mighty magnanimity, stink-beast!"

"Thank you! Thank you, overlord!"

The stomping ceased. Then it recommenced, but grew quieter instead of louder as the doom-promising boots went back to wherever they lurked when not inflicting said doom.

"I must make allowances, since your foul-smelling human physiology is weak and laughable. Go to the break room and ingest stimulants."

A floor plan appeared, superimposed on Barp's prodigious forehead. There were two arrows on the map. The yellow one presumably denoted Adrian's location, since the word 'Stink-Beast!' was written above it. Hence by process of elimination, the red arrow was the break room.

"Then you will return here," the supreme editing overlord continued, "and complete your task."

With that, the red holographic head sank into the screen like an alligator slipping back into the murky waters of its swamp. Adrian sighed. This job was-

"Proceed to the room immediately!" Barp's voice screamed.

"Yes, overlord!"

Adrian Zanfran went out into the corridor. The map had been simple enough to follow, so he headed towards the location the red arrow had marked. But he stopped when he came to a pair of doors each emblazoned with a featureless silhouette of a Rylattu head. The fullness of his bladder made itself known, as if it had been waiting for an appropriate opportunity to do so. Like Adrian himself, his bladder was polite. He approached the door marked with a hairless head, reasoning that the one with lengths of ropey hair denoted females of the alien species.

Like most humans, he'd never urinated with the aid of tentacles rather than hands before. Thus there was a moment's trepidation as he stood in front of a gleaming purple urinal, wondering how exactly this was going to work. But his bladder became somewhat less polite in its insistence, and forced his tentacle, as it were. Fortunately, the appendage proved equal to the task. In fact, the suckers actually felt rather...

Adrian decided to explore that line of thought later. For now, he had things to do. So he placed the ends of his tentacles into the disinfection unit, then continued his odyssey.

A female Rylattu was the small break room's sole other tenant when he entered. Adrian only saw the back of her head as she fiddled with a strange device that seemed to dispense beverages. However, there was something familiar about it...

"Kwix?"

The receptionist whirled round. Her eyes widened.

"Die, human!"

Kwix screamed. Adrian screamed. She reached for the bizarre beverage-dispensing contraption. A barrel telescoped from one end.

"It's me! Adrian! Adrian Zanfran!"

"Oh." Kwix put the curious doomsday drinks machine back on the counter. "All you stink-beasts look the same."

"I have tentacles!"

"Ah, yes. You do have tentacles. What do you want?"

"The supreme editing overlord told me to get a simulant. Got any coffee?"

"Coffee is an inferior human liquid! But if the overlord wishes your disgusting stink-beast body to be filled with energy, I shall obey his mighty commands." She turned round, opened a cabinet, and pulled out a long green packet. "Come here."

"What is that?"

"You will do as I command!"

Adrian tried to look over her shoulder as he complied, but he couldn't see what Kwix was removing from the plastic packet.

"Turn around," the Rylattu said.

"But-"

"Turn around or I'll destroy you with our superior refreshment-weapon technology!"

Adrian turned. Then he cried out. Something sharp had penetrated his left buttock. He whirled round, to find the receptionist holding an empty syringe.

"Express your sniveling gratitude, puny human!"

He snatched it from her hand, ignoring her hiss of protest. Politeness was important, but so was the pain rushing through his ass. Adrian held the spent syringe in front of his face and read the label:

---
Rylattu Ultimate Energy Booster

Disintegrate your tiredness and fill your body with ultimate might!

This product was tested on puny humans. Most of them survived.
---

Adrian glared at the receptionist. He opened his mouth to unleash the torrent of abuse which had been building up in his intestines ever since she'd opened fire on him in the lobby. But he stopped. His vision... It was sharpening. The fatigue was clearing. Something hot and burning coursed through his body, as though it were flowing down each vein and artery. Everywhere it went, it brought fire, wakefulness, and an explosion of energetic euphoria.

"That's... amazing!" he gasped.

"Of course it's amazing, stink-beast! Our mighty Rylattu chemistry is-"

He didn't hear the rest. By then he was sprinting down the corridor, back towards his terminal -- eager to hurl that hurricane of a second wind at his work.